OUR OPINION: Russia buys Obama time on Syria, maybe a solution

SAN ANGELO, Texas - Speaking from the White House East Room on Tuesday, President Barack Obama addressed the problems of Syria. It shockingly breached international law and custom last month by introducing chemical weapons into a two-year civil war that human-rights groups say has accounted for over 110,000 deaths.

Through most of his speech, Obama methodically laid out the case for a limited military strike against Syria to dissuade its leader, Bashar Assad, from further use of those weapons and to tacitly boost the forces seeking to oust him.

Obama came to this rational conclusion: “If we fail to act, the Assad regime will see no reason to stop using chemical weapons. As the ban against these weapons erodes, other tyrants will have no reason to think twice about acquiring poison gas” and using it.

The United States is one of a handful of countries with the military might and, potentially, the will to do something about it. Unlike some of his predecessors when faced with the question of military intervention, Obama abruptly elected to put the question of a military strike before a Congress that is partly hostile and almost wholly skeptical.

The president faced a repudiation that would have predictably negative consequences, both for his own standing and credibility and that of the United States as whole. But late in his speech, Obama offered the possibility of removing the threat of Assad’s chemical weapons without the use of force.

The proposed last-minute rescue comes from an unlikely and, frankly, suspicious source: Russia. The Obama administration agreed to a Russian proposal, supposedly supported by Damascus, to put Syria’s chemical weapons under international control and then either destroy them in place or remove them from the country for disposal elsewhere.

The agreement apparently results from months of casual talks between Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin and, more directly, between Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

On paper, the solution is simple and straightforward. But the United States must still work with Russia and China on a United Nations resolution requiring Assad to turn over his weapons for destruction under international supervision.

The U.S. and U.N. must be assured that Assad gives a complete accounting, that there are no hidden stashes of poison gas. If weapons are to be destroyed elsewhere, they must be transported across a war-torn country harboring fanatical militias no doubt eager to have their own stocks of weapons of mass destruction.

If the peaceful option doesn’t work — and, given some semblance of international unity and purpose, it should — Obama still has the first three-quarters of his speech laying out the case for an attack.